Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Kingdom Hearts II - Sanctuary

Hot on the heels of my review of Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix, I’ve recently replayed through Kingdom Hearts II, originally
released in Japan in 2005, in anticipation of Kingdom Hearts HD 2.5 Remix
(which will feature Kingdom Hearts II Final Mix). I had been playing Kingdom Hearts
around the time that this game came out, so on my 14th birthday in
2006, the year it came out in the US, I obtained a copy and began playing it
almost immediately. I remember playing it to completion in the days that
followed and then, in at least the year 2009, replaying the game from the
beginning because I liked it that much. Of course, being pretty young, I also
used a cheat disc (that I still own, but didn’t use on my most recent run) to
screw around with the game afterwards just to see what I could get away with.
Since the 2013 announcement of the very long-awaited Kingdom Hearts III, I’ve
been going back and replaying every game in the series as a build-up. It is now
Kingdom Hearts II’s turn and for the purposes of this review, I played the game
on Proud Mode for the very first time to make the unlocking of the end-credits
teaser much easier (simply complete all worlds, including Atlantica and 100
Acre Wood). As my once favorite game in the series, I
think that this game has aged surprisingly well, but while the game is a
significant improvement on its predecessor, I am now more aware of its
missteps.

The game begins with an extended
prologue following a boy named Roxas within Twilight Town. His summer vacation
is almost over and his friends Hayner, Pence and Olette have a general plan for
what they want to do. However, those plans go awry as Roxas finds out for the
first time about the Keyblade and his connection to it. He finds out that the
cause of the recent string of strange events is a group of beings called the
Nobodies, a revelation made more confusing by the continuing appearances of a
man named Axel who claims to know him as a past friend. Eventually, Roxas finds
out that his world is nothing but a virtual simulation and that the virtual
town’s purpose was to fully revive the memories of Sora, who Roxas had
recurring dreams about. After this occurs, Sora, Donald and Goofy reawaken from
a year-long slumber resulting from the events of Chain of Memories and see that
Jiminy’s Journal has only a single note reading “Thank Naminé.” Sora’s party
eventually arrives in the real Twilight Town, where Roxas lived previously. At
the train station, after a surprise encounter with King Mickey, they make their
way to the Mysterious Tower, home of Master Yen Sid. At the tower, the trio run
into a new villain named Pete who serves under Maleficent. However, he leaves
once he learns of her demise from the original Kingdom Hearts game. Afterwards,
the three ascend the tower and speak with Yen Sid and Sora gains new clothes
and powers to accomplish his new mission: to seek out many worlds and protect
them from the Heartless and Nobody threats as well as bring an end to
Organization XIII (introduced in Chain of Memories). As Sora, Donald and Goofy
set out on their mission, they learn more about Organization XIII’s past and
goals, as well as find out more about the identity and nature of Roxas.

The mysterious Roxas (only playable in the prologue).

I’ll admit right away that the plot is
not Kingdom Hearts II’s strong suit. The discussions of the light and darkness
in one’s heart return from the first game, but this time we also have
discussions of how human a Nobody really is, someone who doesn’t have a heart
or emotions and yet remembers feelings as though they are really happening,
someone who isn’t supposed to exist and yet does. We are left to wonder by the
end if Organization XIII’s leader, Xemnas, has a point and a worthy purpose,
yet simply going about it the wrong way. Members of Organization XIII are
consistently painted as the bad guys and yet they all have fully fleshed out
personalities, with some even coming off as people who aren’t truly evil, just
following orders. Like in Chain of Memories, it is possible to feel empathy for
at least one of the members when they die, bringing a more human quality to
them. In this sense, the plot can get interesting in places, but that is not
why what we witness is consistently considered inferior, even from me, to the
first game.

The problem that arises is not how the
Disney films are integrated into each world, though there are a few issues with
that including Atlantica basically redoing its plot from the first game, but
rather how confusing the events that unfold become. The first Kingdom Hearts
had a very self-contained story, making it possible for someone to actually
follow along from beginning to end. In Chain of Memories, or rather Re:Chain of Memories in my case, it was also possible to follow along pretty well and the
introduction of Organization XIII set up an interesting mystery that you want
to see answered. However, Kingdom Hearts II is when things get weird, since it
doesn’t really wrap things up so much as it answers some questions while asking
quite a few more that would be answered in future installments. In essence,
this game is the tipping point in the franchise that merely sets up the kudzu
plot that the franchise is now very (in)famous for. When you do complete the
game, you feel a sense of accomplishment for defeating Organization XIII, and
yet you also feel like you need more information. The ending credits sequences
totally tease this by creating a sequel hook that would later be fulfilled by
coded/Re:coded and 3D: Dream Drop Distance. Pretending that those don’t exist
at the moment however, I’d say that I’m satisfied, yet very confused but eagerly
anticipating what is to come.

Who knew that one coat could cause so many headaches?

Gameplay remains largely the same from
the original Kingdom Hearts, though there are a lot of tweaks made to the
combat systems that give Kingdom Hearts II a more action-oriented feel without
really sacrificing what was good about its predecessor. For one thing, physical
attacks have a noticeably greater amount of speed and precision, showing that
Sora has become stronger since his year-long coma. Added to that is the
introduction of Reaction Commands to the series, where you press Triangle
during certain situations to counter what an enemy Heartless or Nobody is doing
and gain the upper hand; outside of combat, Reaction Commands are used for
quick interactions with NPCs or Party members in certain areas. When used
against bosses, Reaction Commands can trigger a cinematic that inflicts damage
and looks really cool. It is also possible, in some situations, to use a
Reaction Command to trigger a Limit with another party member, resulting in
highly damaging combos usually capped off with a cinematic attack.

One major addition is Drive Forms, which
allow Sora to use the new Drive Gauge to absorb one or more Party members to
access an array of new abilities, the most notable being the ability to wield
two Keyblades at once and use both of their abilities. As you level up each
Drive Form, Sora can also have a Growth Ability equipped that grows stronger
over time; these abilities include High Jump, Quick Run, Double Jump and Glide.
Naturally, these new forms give you an edge in combat, though you must use
Drive Orbs to extend the longevity of an active Form or replenish the Drive
Gauge to be able to activate a given Form once more. You also need to be
careful however, as overuse of the Drive Forms can randomly trigger Anti-Form,
in which Sora looks like a Pureblood Heartless and has increased speed and
strength, but at the cost of more useful abilities, such as healing. On a
related note, there are fewer summons in this game, four compared to six in the
original, and they too rely on the Drive Gauge rather than MP, making it easier
to have a summon out and cast whatever magic you want.

You can't avoid Anti-Form forever!

On the subject of magic, MP works a bit
differently this time around. Rather than having several segments determine how
much you can cast, you instead have a blue bar that goes down with each use of
magic (though each spell still costs a certain amount of MP to cast). With this
system, it is actually possible to cast a spell that requires more mana than
you actually have and still have it cast perfectly. Once the MP bar goes down
to zero, it begins to recharge by turning purple and gradually going down,
allowing you to once again use magic when the bar turns blue. It should be
noted that no matter how big your MP bar is, the recharge bar will always be
the same size, plus you can equip abilities that will make it easier to
recharge MP. This system isn’t perfect, since it can be a pain to wait for the
bar to fully recharge during a difficult fight, but I overall like it better
since there’s more freedom with casting magic by way of not having to attack a
lot to get your MP back.

In general, I’ve always preferred the
combat of Kingdom Hearts II over the original game. The systems are a bit more
streamlined to actionize the game, but I think that this streamlining is done
in such a way that it doesn’t sacrifice what made the first game good. Yes,
there are two menus that you can scroll through instead of one, adding a little
complexity to the fights, but at the same time they are very easy to scroll
through and lay out all of your options in front of you so you don’t have to go
hunting for them. With the threat of the Nobodies and Organization XIII now
more dangerous than ever, it only makes sense for Sora to have taken a level in
badass in order to gain an edge. Plus, there is still a high degree of
challenge present, especially on Proud Mode, where you take double the damage
and only inflict half.

A screen showing a lot of the gameplay elements at once.

The biggest source of difficulty would
be the boss fights and some of the mini-games. By no means are the bosses a
walk in the park, but the two campaign bosses that stand out within the fandom
are Demyx and Xaldin, and for good reason. Demyx (encountered in Hollow
Bastion), described as “not a very good fighter”, uses a sitar and is capable
of summoning water clones of himself (and just control water in general). Sure
some of his attacks are pretty easy to dodge, but they hit really fast and he’s
just really relentless to the point where the best strategy is to use Wisdom
Form, which enhances magic, and spam Fire. You’ll really need this strategy
however when dealing with the water clones, where you have to kill a certain
number of them within a time limit or else you lose for no discernible reason.
Now imagine that, but you hear him say “Dance, water, dance!” so much that just
hearing it is enough to cause a lot of grief.

"Dance, water, dance!"

But then we have Xaldin (encountered in
Beast’s Castle), wielder of six lances and the element of wind and capable of
completely destroying you if you have no idea what you’re doing. It can take several
tries to finally take him down due to his insane power, teleportation ability
and impossibly long reach; this is not helped by the location of the fight: a
very narrow bridge. To reliably damage him, you have to use a Reaction Command
called Learn in order to replace your basic attack with Jump, which can be
stacked up to nine times, so that you can spam that. Of course, he’s also
capable of combining his spears through wind to form a dragon and then, just
out of reach, unleash an unblockable whirlwind. Really, the only reason you’re
able to keep going at all is because this is usually the first time that the
player can have King Mickey bail them out (each time you trigger him it lowers
the chance of him appearing; I ended up needing him twice during the same
encounter just to stay alive). Now, on top of all that, Organization XIII
fights have a very high chance of triggering Anti-Form, causing much aggravation,
and an empty Drive Gauge, should this happen to you (and it will). Once you
beat either of these bosses though, you really feel like a winner (an exhausted
winner, but still).

This is when things really get hard.

There are two other bosses I’d like to
address though, but more briefly. First, Sephiroth returns as a bonus boss in
Hollow Bastion. He’s a little easier to handle compared to the first game due
to being slower and telegraphing his moves more, but at the same time he’s more
aggressive and can rip you a new one the
very second the fight begins. In other words, he’s more dangerous than he
looks and can even give the most experienced players a run for their money.
Second, I’d like to mention Xemnas, the final boss of the game. I bring him up
because we previously did a list of memorable fights on this blog and I wanted
to confirm that he totally deserves the spot he has. He may seem easy to some
(admittedly I knew exactly what to do because as I played, the memories of intentionally
fighting him a lot from five years ago came flooding back), but throughout the
multi-stage fight he can be a killing machine for those who are unprepared. Plus,
the fight is really awesome and gives a true sense of accomplishment once you’ve
taken him down.

This is how the fight starts.

Before I truly move on, I want to
briefly bring up a couple of mini-games that always give people trouble, myself
included. Trying to complete Jiminy’s Journal can be a real pain in itself,
since some goals require you to have ungodly patience and skill, but the one
goal that truly stands out is trying to complete Poster Duty within 30 seconds.
To put this in perspective, I could never do it when I was younger and there
wasn’t much help aside from the BradyGames Guide (which continues to serve me well
by the way), but a quick video search as an adult helped me finally accomplish
it; long story short, max out all of your Drive Forms and practice a route
until you have it down. The other mini-game I want to bring up is the
Underdrome, which is this game’s version of the Olympus Coliseum tournaments.
More specifically, it is the Paradox Cups that are aggravating due to the
constantly changing rules within them, especially in the Hades Paradox Cup.
This particular tournament is a nightmare, since even being Level 99 isn’t
enough to save you. Fortunately if you die you can get a new checkpoint every
10 waves (out of 50) so you can jump back in, but that isn’t much comfort when
you suffer death after painful death against virtually every enemy type in the
game, including bosses, as well as the Final Fantasy characters who always fight
in teams.

Now we move onto the worlds themselves.
Kingdom Hearts II brings back some of the worlds from the previous game while
adding a few more to keep things interesting. Some of the worlds also have what
I’d consider sub-worlds since you have to enter a specific area to access
another world that you couldn’t otherwise get to. One of these sub-worlds is
the Timeless River, which mimics the style of early B&W Disney shorts, and
the other is Space Paranoids, also known as the Tron world. I found these to be
pretty fun to go through overall thanks to the former having its own fun
atmosphere and the latter being a more condensed, but also more exciting,
version of Tron’s story. In general, I thought that the worlds were chosen
pretty well, though the stories have varying degrees of success. I tried not to
dwell on it too much however since I just focused on taking it all in and
having a good time. Of course, that doesn’t stop certain worlds from having their
own unique problems.

Returning worlds retain the feel that
they had previously, although there is a case that could be made against trying
to shove them into every Kingdom Hearts game. Agrabah, the Aladdin world, keeps
the same sort of minimalist format for the city portion, which, while having a
better layout than before, feels old since the story is somewhat recycled from
the first game. Apart from the unique Heartless bosses, the player still has to
go through the same motions, though the only real excitement in the world comes
from the redesigned Cave of Wonders, which challenges the player during
exploration. Atlantica, another recycled world, is no fun at all, since they
not only recycle the story entirely from the first game, but they also seem to
have done it purely to make it more accurate to the film by giving Prince Eric
a presence. The real waste however comes from how they make the swimming controls
at least 100% better and yet the only real use it has is getting you to
different rhythm-based mini-games. The songs are too easy, get grating really
fast thanks to cringe worthy lyrics/performances and they are also required to
complete if you want to get closer to having the best stuff in the game. I
really wish that more thought had been put into this world, or at least have
the swimming mechanics contribute to something more useful.

The only other world I have any major
complaints about would be Port Royal, based on Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse
of the Black Pearl. When Sora, Donald and Goofy get involved in the events of
the movie, they end up hardly contributing anything, opting to instead take a
backseat to Will Turner and Captain Jack Sparrow; fine, they have to fend off
Barbossa as a boss, but that’s pretty much it. Remember earlier when I said
that combat in Kingdom Hearts II has a generally quick and exciting pace? Well,
that all comes to a grinding halt in Port Royal thanks to the enemy pirates who
have the medallion curse upon them. The game decided when you fight them to
introduce a new infuriating mechanic where the pirates can only be damaged when they are out in the moonlight, being invincible
otherwise. You do have to think about your environment more, but that also
makes battles more frustrating and is the reason that I never visited the world
after fully completing it and opening every chest. But the worst part about the
world is how it creates a deep uncanny valley effect by putting Sora, Donald,
Goofy and the Heartless against a more realistically rendered backdrop with
realistically animated human beings. No matter how I look at it, one thing’s
for sure: I’m not buying it. The only thing I’m fairly certain about is that
Port Royal was included because the franchise was enjoying a long streak in
popularity around that time.

I'm still not buying it.

One last thing to note is that the Gummi
Ship levels are spectacularly improved. They are no longer annoying and
tedious, but instead awesome and filled with replay value. It helps that you
get automatic ship upgrades rather than having to take the time to construct
something decent (though you can still do this if you wish).

With all of that said, the graphics are
a real improvement over the original Kingdom Hearts. There are still some
shortcuts taken here and there with facial animations, particularly on Sephiroth
for some reason, though these seem to be fewer in number than before. There is
more detail in the environments coupled with a sometimes bold decision to go
trippy and abstract at times. I overall like Sora’s design in this game better,
if only because it fits his older appearance really well, and I find the
aesthetic of the Nobodies to be unique and interesting. On that note, I also
noticed that the animations in this game are wilder than before, especially
when it comes to the Nobodies, who can twist, turn and stretch in ways I haven’t
really seen before or since. I’m sure the intention is to make them
otherworldly in this regard, which they really succeed in doing.

Sora after getting new clothes from Master Yen Sid.
Notice the additional zippers and belts.

The score is also phenomenal, though I
wouldn’t expect anything less from a Kingdom Hearts game. A variety of musical
pieces help contribute appropriate emotions to each situation, plus some
themes, like the Underdrome battle music, are extremely catchy and easy to
remember even with extensive time away from the game. The heavy use of the
piano for the more tense music is an interesting choice, since the dissonant
tone helps establish a feeling of dread and, when combined with the quick
tempos, communicate a sense of urgency that more scores need.

I’d also like to compliment the voice
acting. Haley Joel Osment’s voice has clearly aged, though he still provides a great
performance as Sora. Since there are too many characters to really discuss, I’ll
just say that the Disney characters sound very close, if not exact, to the
voice you’d associate with them. This extends to the Port Royal characters, whose
sound-alikes are fairly convincing (I’m certain that the real actors would have
asked for too much money). The Final Fantasy characters on the other hand are
more of a mixed bag. Aerith’s VA in this game, Mena Suvari, has a very wooden
delivery that makes her less interesting to listen to compared to Mandy Moore
from before. Her voice actually sucks emotion out of a scene instead of
contributing, so it’s really no surprise that this was her last time voicing
the character; some have this same problem with Steve Burton as Cloud, though
it’s really up to you to decide if this is due to his talent or Cloud’s
characterization.

Then we have Sephiroth. I dedicated a
paragraph to him in my last review and concluded that Lance Bass simply wasn’t
the right choice for the character. Fortunately they didn’t bring him back for
the sequel, instead recruiting the talented George Newbern, who some may
recognize as the voice of Superman in the popular Justice League cartoon and
beyond (his most recent appearance as the character being the Injustice: Gods
Among Us fighting game). Newbern’s take on Sephiroth is much more imposing and captures
the feel of the character much more accurately. It’s little wonder then that he’s
pretty much become the go-to guy to voice him.

With George Newbern, Sephiroth sounds how he looks.

Overall, Kingdom Hearts II is a phenomenal
game. The gameplay is improved upon in just about every way from its
predecessor and introduces more action elements without truly compromising what
made the first game so good. On the other hand, the story is much more
convoluted and can at times be difficult to follow, leaving questions
unanswered for prospective future installments to clear up. In any case, I’d
highly recommend this game since it has just about everything you could ask for
in an action-based RPG. Newcomers should definitely not begin with this game, as they will be impossibly confused as to
what’s going on, so I’d suggest instead beginning with HD 1.5 Remix on PS3. In
the end, I really enjoyed this game and seriously can’t wait to play Kingdom
Hearts III (sort of teased during the normal ending sequence); I’ve waited
eight years already, so what’s a couple more? Of course, the real treat for
completing the game is unlocking the secret ending, which is an early teaser
for Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep.

The Gathering

Next time Kingdom Hearts is reviewed on
this blog, it will be an in-depth look at that very game.